The Gospel of Reconciliation

[imperfectchristian]

St. Francis of Assisi: "Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary."
​

This story has been going over and over in my heart and mind and has been causing me to ask what it truly means to be reconciled to God...as a child of God.​

I was somewhat argumentative with Tamara in another thread yesterday and what she said really challenged me to look deeper at myself.​

We can be doing all of the right things according to our own standards, the church's standards and societies standards and still be prodigals away from home with our Father.​

Matthew 5:43-48​

43 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.​

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAmeJHXcw4w

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

So why do you and Tamara get to say this and have it heard, and Moriah does not?

It has been saying the same thing for years. Nobody listens.

 

[The_Joker]

It has been saying the same thing for years. Nobody listens.

Could be the whole "it" thing, possibly.

 

[Elijah2]

So why do you and Tamara get to say this and have it heard, and Moriah does not?

It has been saying the same thing for years. Nobody listens.

Some listen M!

 

[KleinerApfel]

Thank you Twiggy, that's beautiful.

 

[imperfectchristian]

So why do you and Tamara get to say this and have it heard, and Moriah does not?

It has been saying the same thing for years. Nobody listens.

I think I posted more for myself than I did for anyone else. I need to have a more forgiving heart.

Thank you Twiggy, that's beautiful.

Thank you banner...your posts are always encouraging and beautiful!

 

[Cassidy]

That's so cool! Thanks Twiggy!

 

[imperfectchristian]

That's so cool! Thanks Twiggy!

Bless you baby girl!

 

[enoch son]

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In all my reading in the word Paul never said he had the ministrey of salvation! WHY???????????????????????????????? Because salvation is of the Lord and not of the mind and mouth and actions of men. It's belong to God and to Him alone. 2 Tim. 1;9.
If one doesn't understand the reconciliation of God one will be cluess on the salvation of God. 2 Cor.5;18-21. Reconciliation was the ministery of Paul. Be reconciled to God and see His salvation. STAND UP AGIAN!

 

[ralangley]

The video you posted is beautiful. Thank you for posting it. The Amish can teach us much about the power of forgiveness and grace.

 

[enoch son]

So why do you and Tamara get to say this and have it heard, and Moriah does not?

It has been saying the same thing for years. Nobody listens.

BE OF GOOD CHEER MY FRIEND WHEN I STARTED TALKING THIS YEARS AGO I WAS THE ONLY ONE HERE. WAIT THAT COULD BE WRONG! I DON'T KNOW WHO HAD BEEN BAN.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAmeJHXcw4w

"As they released the killer, they released themselves from anger and bitterness -- but not from pain."

Perfect summation of forgiveness, right there. You release the guilty party from having to "pay" for what they did, and by doing so, you release yourself from anger and bitterness over the offense. But that does not mean the pain goes away. Sometimes, depending on the type and severity of harm done, that can take years.

 

[the.Sheepdog]

"As they released the killer, they released themselves from anger and bitterness -- but not from pain."

Perfect summation of forgiveness, right there. You release the guilty party from having to "pay" for what they did, and by doing so, you release yourself from anger and bitterness over the offense. But that does not mean the pain goes away. Sometimes, depending on the type and severity of harm done, that can take years.

Moriah dear, the killer is dead. He was not heaven bound I would venture to guess. The forgiveness of the killer is not for the killer, but for those remaining. When you forgive someone YOU get the benefits.

The killer is Hell bound he made that choice himself.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Nobody chooses to become a killer. Trust us on this one.

A killer bes an abortion of society. One thrust so far to the outer darkness by the rest that they lose all incentive to invest emotionally in the human world at all.

The problem with the Western world: this myopic fixation upon individualism to the detriment of recognizing corporate responsibility.

The individual can find no basis for embracing individual responsibility in a toxic society which eschews its own collective social responsibility.

 

[The_Joker]

Nobody chooses to become a killer. Trust us on this one.

Of course they choose to become killers. They choose to get up in the morning. They choose to have eggs and bacon for breakfast. They choose to go out and then kill someone for this or that reason or for no reason at all. This is common sense. There is no unknown force compelling them to commit a crime. They simply do it. Now, a few might just be crazy too, and at that point you can get into the "Is he fit to stand trial?" aspects, however, in general all people make their own decisions. If he wasn't guilty of his own crimes there would be no point in either forgiving or hating them.

The problem with the Western world: this myopic fixation upon individualism to the detriment of recognizing corporate responsibility.

You have it backwards. If anything, the problem with the Western World of late is that no one is willing to embrace individual responsibility. They want to blame the world, the society they live in, everything else except for the problem within themselves. The second problem with the West is that it has, in general, lost its understanding and acceptance of basic values. We live in a nihilistic society, a society that believes in nothing. A society that tolerates far too much rubbish.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

That's where you'd be wrong, Joker. All we ever hear about in the western world has to do with the individual. The whole "take responsibility, quit whining, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" nonsense bes so deeply ingrained that few of us even recognize it for the toxic filth it comprises. But we never hear anyone talk about how the group (family, community, society, whatever) bears responsibility in equal measure for how it steers, shapes and treats each individual in it. Whenever anyone attempts to make that aspect known they get the same type of response you have just given. The fact that the equation has become imbalanced in precisely this fashion would be what accounts for the backlash you describe. Individuals get told to blame nothing BUT themselves, they do not get "allowed" to trace from effects back to cause so as to recognize how matters have developed, heaven forbid anyone should have to be held accountable for how they treated someone else. That would be the dereliction of duty here.

 

[Cassidy]

You have it backwards. If anything, the problem with the Western World of late is that no one is willing to embrace individual responsibility. They want to blame the world, the society they live in, everything else except for the problem within themselves. The second problem with the West is that it has, in general, lost its understanding and acceptance of basic values. We live in a nihilistic society, a society that believes in nothing. A society that tolerates far too much rubbish.

I agree! The buck really stops with you. You cannot continue to blame everyone else when you were in control of your own actions. How far back can one go? A wife beater could say "Well I was beaten as a child that's why I did what I did"...that doesn't make me feel any better...well then we'll just let the father take responsibility then? Then he could say that his father and his father and his father is responsible....so how far back to we go? The wife beater takes no responsibility...and the victim is left going back and back and back to try and find the one that's truly responsible.

I myself could beat up on my kids and blame everyone else...but I choose not to. I choose to break the cycle of violence...the buck stops with me....and the responsibility for my children's welbeing is MINE....NOT society's...NOT my parent's...NOT the community...MINE! And if I choose to allow excuses of the past to control my actions...then I only myself to blame!

We can look to society and past for REASONS...sure...but never for excuse! At the end of the day...we are held accountable for our own actions according to law..AND...according to God.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

It's not about "blame". It's about tracing effects to their causes.
This whole hangup about "blame" actually constitutes part of the sickness involved. But hey, we have people who want to claim rape victims "ask for it" too.
It doesn't expect anyone here to comprehend though. That might lead to things changing for the better. People actually taking responsibility for their impact on one another instead of indulging the lie that their fists and knives, literal or figurative, may go where they please and it's everyone else's fault if they "choose" to "let" themselves bleed or get bruised. Heaven forbid we actually trace the cause of the stab wound to the one whose hand wields the knife instead of no further than the body on which it occurs. My gods we cannot have that now can we. The entire Abuse Enterprise would collapse at the core.

 

[Cassidy]

It's not about "blame". It's about tracing effects to their causes.

For the perpetrator or the victim? For the perpetrator, yes I can see that..that's why I saidn "We can look to society and past for REASONS". I can't see how that can help the victim though.

This whole hangup about "blame" actually constitutes part of the sickness involved. But hey, we have people who want to claim rape victims "ask for it" too.

Can do yeh....and yes the whole 'they asked for it' thing is way too old. I tell you what helped me though is taking my power back and taking responsibility for the 'part I played'. Don't get me wrong...he was responsible 100%...but I felt empowerment when I took some of the power back and took 'some' of the responsibility for myself for the position I put myself in that resulted in being raped in the first place. That's personal to me, I wouldn't expect anyone else to do it that way, but it certainly helped me in my healing because I felt that he had stolen enough power from me and I refused to remain completely powerless. It's complicated. I may not be explaining it right.

It doesn't expect anyone here to comprehend though. That might lead to things changing for the better. People actually taking responsibility for their impact on one another instead of indulging the lie that their fists and knives, literal or figurative, may go where they please and it's everyone else's fault if they "choose" to "let" themselves bleed or get bruised.

Again I'm misunderstanding...are you meaning the perp or the victim here? Or both? Can you ellaboate a bit on this please?

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Not going to comment on your personal experience because that would be "crossing a line" so to speak. But in Moriah's observation, the sickness of abuse has permeated and nearly completely redefined what the human species has come to regard as just "normal" and "the way things are", and this accounts for the majority not only of toxic emotional and social milieu for the species but also for all the broken tools they then grab after and scrap over to try to sort the resulting confusion bred from tacit acceptance of abuse in any form as "normal", "the way things are" and even "good for you in the long run". Until the human species can detect these things for their true nature and consciously, collectively expose them, reject them, and purge them, discussing how and why this belief (and its attendant misperception) -- that accepting blame for being victimized constitutes some twisted form of self-empowerment -- somehow actually not only invokes future sickness but reflects the degree of extant damage, would be an exercise in futility on most occasions.

This does not mean it fails to comprehend the dynamic itself. Moriah has often referred to the experience of being molested itself as having been, by comparison to the rest, the most empowering experience of its entire childhood -- and it does not do so merely for dramatic effect, but for similar reasons to the ones you mention. However, while doing so it does maintain some vestigial awareness that this configuratus reflects sickness by nature, and not health, so it has not fully bought into the Abuse programming inherent in such inversions of reality.